single pilot ifr trip tonight

(Lynne Miller) writes:

I think it is very safe to fly the airplane with two VORs and ADF,
if you are a proficient instrument pilot. This was done for thirty
plus years prior to GPS coming into the cockpit without much
problem. Remember, GPS is still a rather new invention when it
comes to aviation usage.

The reason I'm puzzled by the original poster's statement (and his
instructor's) is that the GPS, VOR, and ADF are all secondary
problems.

The primary task during flight in IMC is keeping the plane upright,
and a GPS does not help with that any more than a VOR or ADF does (in
fact, in the unlikely event that I lost *all* gyros but still somehow
had electricity, I'd probably choose the ADF over the GPS for trying
to keep the wings level, due to the ADF's faster response time).

Unless you're flying very low around high terrain, even a
completely-busted VOR, ADF, or GPS shouldn't kill you, so I don't see
how a functioning one puts you at risk. Of course, you will need some
way to land eventually, but in that case ILS is more accurate than GPS
anyway.


All the best,


David

Guy Elden Jr. wrote:
It's not about a comfort level for me... it's about pilot workload. There is
a tremendous amount of work involved in flying heads down in the clouds, so
any device that can help alleviate that load is welcome by me. It may be
legal to fly in instrument conditions with two VORs and an ADF, but is it
really safe if you're the only pilot in the plane, weather is forming all
around you, and you have to hand fly the plane?

What's "safe"? I fly a fair amount of IMC in an aircraft with an old but
rock-solid COM/COM/NAV/ADF stack (plus a panel LORAN that flakes out in
precip and a NAV-11 which I'd file under "mostly adequate"), and it's
within *my* level of acceptable risk, but that's almost completely an
individual call under part 91.

That said, I do this because I've trained extensively with this sort of
setup, and (much like basic attitude flying) navigating with it
eventually became something that I could deal mostly subconsciously, with
with plenty of mental bandwith left over for thinking about planning and
weather and whatever else. I don't particularly think I'm an uberpilot,
though I do think my initial instrument instructors were *excellent*.

I'm also not against automation (I occasionally sneak into a phone booth
only to emerge as a 767 systems instructor), but there's a *lot* to be
said for training, practice, and situational awareness.

(andrew m. boardman) writes:

What's "safe"? I fly a fair amount of IMC in an aircraft with an
old but rock-solid COM/COM/NAV/ADF stack (plus a panel LORAN that
flakes out in precip and a NAV-11 which I'd file under "mostly
adequate"), and it's within *my* level of acceptable risk, but
that's almost completely an individual call under part 91.

Right. Personally, I think that safety flying in IMC comes mostly
from the ability to prioritize, defer, and negotiate, not from any
extra equipment in the plane.

For example, there is no reason that a complex new routing should
increase your risk of being in an accident with or without an AP or
IFR GPS -- if there is a higher risk, it's because the pilot stops
prioritizing and fixates on the rerouting task. If you have a
tendency to fixate when under stress, some day you are going to get in
over your head no matter how many toys you have on the panel.

If ATC calls when you cannot deal with them, and it's not an
instruction calling for immediate action (i.e. "bravo juliet oscar,
turn right 30 degrees NOW, traffic"), say "standby": during IFR
training my instructor insisted that I always do that when turning,
i.e. in a hold. If ATC gives you a routing that you cannot deal with
all at once, say "request initial vector" and then take your time
working out the routing before resuming own-navigation. If turbulence
is knocking the fillings out of your teeth and bringing you angry
messages from ATC about your assigned altitude, request a block
altitude assignment. These are all things you can do with about 5% of
your attention, leaving the other 95% free to fly the plane (or
monitor the autopilot, if you're using one).

Personally, I fly with a NAVCOM/NAVCOM/DME/ADF stack. I have not yet
had to do most of what I listed in the previous paragraph, but I do
often have to request an initial vector -- not because the rerouting
is too complicated (so far), but because ATC has a tendency to reroute
me direct to navaids that I don't have a hope of receiving yet (and
I'm not willing to cheat with my handheld GPS). That, I think, is the
most credible argument for eventually requiring an IFR GPS in every
IFR plane -- not that pilots will crash and die without one, but that
an IFR GPS can reduce the workload for ATC and congestion on the
frequency for other pilots.

Ironically, the published IFR low-level routes are designed to use
navaids that are close enough together that I should be able to do
own-navigation end-to-end without bothering ATC much -- if the
controllers didn't keep rerouting me two or three stages ahead, they
wouldn't end up having to vector me. I'm sure that most pilots
appreciate the reroutings, though, since they have IFR GPS's and the
reroutings might save them five or ten minutes.


All the best,


David

I wouldn't have departed night with a known radio problem plus a dead flashlight

(I have no less than six flashlights in my plane and flight bag), plus in
conditions
you had never flown in. You had a series of additional radio failures which
indicates a possible electrical system problem. Was your alternator still
on-line?
Rather than waxing on about the great flight, I'd be thanking my lucky stars for
getting
back in one piece.

"Guy Elden Jr." wrote:

Just got back from a good proficiency practice flight. This was the first
time I'd flown single pilot IFR at night with conditions that could
potentially deteriorate to actual instrument. (cloudy, rain developing as
the flight progressed, visibility dropping somewhat)

The basic rundown... got the plane, preflighted in the dark, and realized
that it was the first time I had actually done a full preflight at night.
All the other night flights I did the preflight at dusk or earlier.
Definitely took me a few extra minutes to get oriented to the darkness and
using my flashlight.

I got through that ok, ready to do, and poof! My flashlight _light_ (not the
batteries) goes out! Just like the bright, microsend flash of illumination
you see from a normal light bulb then total darkness. Crap! Fortunately, I
had a spare light, smaller, but did the job. I was a bit disappointed in the
bulb that burnt out though... it was a Maglight, and barely over a year old
with hardly any use. I'm tempted to send it back to them for a replacement.

Takeoff out of CDW was uneventful, although the controller was a bit pushy
when I wanted to clarify the squawk before departing... she said "You need
to get rolling" after confirming the code was correct... somebody on
downwind was undoubtedly going to plow into me I guess if I didn't hurry
along. Needless to say, I didn't hurry. (I was still holding short, so if
need be could've just continued to hold short, but she (the controller) was
obviously in need of some excitement on a dreary night with barely any
traffic to manage).

So up up and away we go, didn't even have time to make the initial turn to
180 before departure vectored me to SAX. Then enroute to SWF for a practice
ILS.

I noticed before departing that one of the two radio / nav units in the
plane was not functioning... it's one of those that has a primary and
secondary freq, but the display was completely dead, so I decided to just
leave it off. So even before starting the flight, I knew I had only one
working com and one working nav / vor unit operational. No problem, if
things got too heavy, I could just cancel IFR and continue VFR... clouds
were definitely high enough on the way up (around 6000 OVC). As I got closer
to SWF, I tried tuning in the NDB so I could identify an intersection along
the LOC. No dice. I didn't hear the magic morse in the background, and the
needle spun and spun til I got dizzy. Strike two on operational components
in the plane! Still, I managed to get to SWF safely, and taxied off to the
side to get myself setup for the trip back to CDW.

Departure out of SWF was a bit more interesting, as I had to read the SWF.4
departure procedure. Easy to do, and so off I went. Unfortunately, the
routing back home wasn't optimal... was supposed to go out to HUG then turn
south to head to CDW, so I asked for a shortcut to SAX instead. After
getting handed off to NY Approach on 127.6, I had a helluva time hearing a
transmission from the controller. I asked to hear it again, and again, even
with the volume all the way up, it was barely audible. I got the instruction
ok tho... left turn to 170. And fortunately the gremlin in the radio cleared
itself up on the next transmission. But this turns out to have been strike 3
for equipment in the plane... I encountered this problem a couple other
times, fortunately when other pilots were transmitting, and not ATC.

Getting back in to CDW was a bit dicey, as the rain had started to come
down, and the mist was making it difficult to pick out CDW (which is
difficult enough these days anyway with 4/22 being closed for repairs). I
told the controller at one point that I had the beacon in sight, but that
wasn't good enough for him. 2 miles later, I could make out 9/27, so I was
handed off for a visual approach, which wasn't my best approach, but was a
squeaker of a landing.

So to sum up: I had 1 VOR, 1 COM, and no backups in the plane for this trip.
And the COM was flaky toward the end. Methinks this plane is about to be
decommissioned from the flight line, because the owner refuses to put any
more money into it. It also just came out of 100 hour, so should (in theory)
be at its best operating capacity. I know I won't be trying any more trips
at night or IFR in it anytime soon, but I'm glad I had the chance to push
the boundaries a bit with the bare minimums for night IFR flight.

--
Guy Elden Jr.

--
--Ray Andraka, P.E.
President, the Andraka Consulting Group, Inc.
401/884-7930 Fax 401/884-7950
email
http://www.andraka.com

"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin, 1759

"Guy Elden Jr." wrote in message ...
Just got back from a good proficiency practice flight. This was the first
time I'd flown single pilot IFR at night with conditions that could
potentially deteriorate to actual instrument. (cloudy, rain developing as
the flight progressed, visibility dropping somewhat)

....

So to sum up: I had 1 VOR, 1 COM, and no backups in the plane for this trip.
And the COM was flaky toward the end. Methinks this plane is about to be
decommissioned from the flight line, because the owner refuses to put any
more money into it. It also just came out of 100 hour, so should (in theory)
be at its best operating capacity. I know I won't be trying any more trips
at night or IFR in it anytime soon, but I'm glad I had the chance to push
the boundaries a bit with the bare minimums for night IFR flight.

Given that you suspected the flight might turn into actual, did you
examine the
VOR checks done by other pilots in the last 30 days? I'd suspect if
the owner was an aircraft slumlord, that they weren't done... I got
bit by this once (second IFR solo flight after getting ticket), I
rented a plane where the VOR check was done, but only on one radio,
the other radio was off by about 13' and determining location by
station cross-reference put me into a confusing quandry where my time
based location wasn't matching the VOR cross reference location. Of
course I didn't realize that the second radio was bum or which VOR was
actually checked because it just said VOR check good +1', so It took
me another 20 minutes of sweating in hard actual to sluth out which
one was bad. I had to wait until an NDB passage to eliminate the bad
one. This was all over territory
which was outside ATC radar coverage, and when I did come into
coverage I was barked at because I had reported my position in the
wrong location (30 miles wrong). I informed them of electronics
problems and asked them to keep an eye on me. To compound my stress
levels, ATC later in the flight kept calling me asking my altitude and
telling me I was in a steep decent. This was due to a fresh and
faulty encoder install two days prior to me renting this plane.. No
idea why it kept doing that, but it sure freaked me out. Constantly
running through my mind were all the failure modes, blocked static,
failing gyros, etc etc.... I think I lost 40 pounds of weight and all
in perspiration on that trip. This stress could have all been avoided
if the log clearly stated which VOR was checked, and if the second one
wasn't checked I could have checked it myself before departing. (More
importantly, I should have realized that the entry was incorrect or
incomplete) The VOR problem combined with the fear of diving into the
ground due to some instrumentation failure were over the top
stressfull. The encoder by itself wouldn't have been so bad, but I
was already doubting the aircraft's quality before that happened due
to the VOR issue, so I started assuming everything was going to hell
in a handbasket... I learned more about troubleshooting problems on
that one trip than 90 hours of classroom lecture could ever be taught.

(Eric Ulmer) wrote in message om...

Given that you suspected the flight might turn into actual, did you
examine the
VOR checks done by other pilots in the last 30 days?

Good advice from the legal perspective...

rented a plane where the VOR check was done, but only on one radio,
the other radio was off by about 13' and determining location by
station cross-reference put me into a confusing quandry where my time
based location wasn't matching the VOR cross reference location.

Would it have been possible for you to check both OBS against
each other, either on the ground or once airborne? I also like
to turn 10 degrees each way and be sure I get full deflection.

A VOR check sometime in the last 30 days may be legally comforting,
but perhaps not as useful as knowing that both OBS are working
correctly for *this flight*.

I have had it happen that I did a VOT check on Weds, and on
Sun. discovered that the #2 OBS required 20 degrees to get a
full scale deflection. Something had frotzed.

Even when there isn't an authorized VOR checkpoint one can
often pick up a radial somewhere on the airport, or track
the localizer on takeoff or something.

It sounds like a nervewracking trip for you.

Sydney

"Snowbird" wrote in message om...

Even when there isn't an authorized VOR checkpoint one can
often pick up a radial somewhere on the airport, or track
the localizer on takeoff or something.

Tracking the localizer won't tell you anything about VOR errors.

"Ron Natalie" wrote in message =
m...
=20
"Snowbird" wrote in message =
om...
=20
Even when there isn't an authorized VOR checkpoint one can
often pick up a radial somewhere on the airport, or track
the localizer on takeoff or something.
=20
Tracking the localizer won't tell you anything about VOR errors.
=20
=20

It could, if the VOR happened to be on the airport.
---JRC---

"John R. Copeland" wrote in message ...

Tracking the localizer won't tell you anything about VOR errors.

It could, if the VOR happened to be on the airport.

I did mean localizer, not VOR. But I wasn't specific or clear
enough about what I meant. See other post.

Regards,
Sydney

"Ron Natalie" wrote in message om...
"Snowbird" wrote in message om...

Even when there isn't an authorized VOR checkpoint one can
often pick up a radial somewhere on the airport, or track
the localizer on takeoff or something.

Tracking the localizer won't tell you anything about VOR errors.

Depends upon the source of the error. It is true it will
not tell you whether the OBS is aligned within 4 degrees
(or indeed 13 or any number)

It wil give information about other NAV/OBS errors.

When my OBS have failed to give full-scale deflection at the
appropriate deviation, this occurs with both localizer and
VOR. If there's a problem with the splitter, it's evident.
If one NAV radio isn't receiving properly, it's evident.

Regards,
Sydney